Holocaust Museum Digitizing Letters From Anne Frank’s Father
In this June 7, 2019 photo, Ryan Cooper holds a 1972 portion of a diary that he wrote when he visited Otto Frank, the father of the famed Holocaust victim and diarist Anne Frank, at his home in Yarmouth, Mass. The diary includes a photo of Anne Frank and the autographs of other people he met who knew her. Cooper has donated a trove of letters and mementos he received from Otto Frank to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum ahead of the 90th anniversary of Anne Frank's birthday. Philip Marcelo/AP Photo
YARMOUTH, Mass.—Ryan Cooper was a 20-something Californian unsure of his place in the world when he struck up a pen pal correspondence in the 1970s with Otto Frank, the father of the young Holocaust victim Anne Frank.
Through dozens of letters and several face-to-face meetings, the two forged a friendship that lasted until Frank died in 1980 at the age of 91.
